Soft Surrender (my whole wide world)
by serenadreams
Summary: Felicity goes missing from her home when she's eight years old. It takes Oliver ten years to find her. Childhood friends are torn apart by an unspeakable tragedy, only to be reunited by chance.
1. prologue

**AN: _So this fic has been a long time coming. I've had it all planned out for months, but it took me a while to find the right tone and get anything properly written down._**

_**Originally this was inspired by Soft Surrender (Where is She?) by The Killers. I was listening to it on repeat on a really long bus journey and ended up planning out this whole story in my head. But it also doubles up as a bit of a modern Tangled AU, which is a completely accidental but happy coincidence.**_

**_Anyway, please let me know what you think!_**

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><p>Prologue<p>

__we'll be dressed in black__

__and you'll scream my name aloud__

The first time Oliver Queen lays eyes on Felicity Smoak, he's six years old and she's a tearful baby bundled up in her mother's arms. He doesn't pay her much attention, in fact he's far much more interested in the plate of 'welcome to the neighborhood' cookies that Mrs. Smoak is holding in her other hand.

The first time he really notices her, she's two and has a mess of chocolate curls and a pink dress on. He's eight and he spends the entire garden party trying to teach her to say his name.

The first time he decides he actually likes the funny little girl next door who makes silly faces at him and seems to always wear pink, she's three and she wanders into his garden looking for her ball, only to find him crying about something that happened at school. She sits down beside him and wraps her tiny little arm around his shoulders.

The first time he protects her, she's four and he's ten and he watches out his window as she gets pushed over by a couple of boys who live down the block. He rushes outside and bullies them off, before helping her up, brushing off her knees and holding her hand as he walks her back to her house.

The first time he misses her when she's not around, he just turned eleven and she can't come to his birthday party because she's in hospital with a bad case of the flu. He visits her the next day, with a slice of birthday cake carefully wrapped up in a paper napkin. He draws a smiley face on a balloon and ties it to the bars at the end of her bed. She laughs, her little face lighting up, and he's sure it's the best present he received.

The first time he kisses her, is the first time he kisses any girl. He's twelve and she's six. She presses her lips to his on a dare, before running back to her friends, blushing and laughing. He thinks he might love her a little bit.

The first time he braids her hair, she's seven and he sits with her in the playground at school, carefully picking out the hard lumps of paint that have stuck to the soft strands. He combs it through with his fingers and braids it down her back.

The first time he understands what the world is really like, he's fifteen and he watches from his window as the police pull up outside her house.

The first time he cries over a girl, is after his mother sits him down in the living room, with tears in her eyes. She explains that Felicity's missing, and the police haven't been able to find her. He doesn't say anything. He walks out of the room and hides under his bedclothes like he used to when he was a little kid. He cries until he can't anymore. And when he falls asleep, his dreams are filled with images of Felicity living out all the terrors he's seen in the few horror movies he's watched with friends. He wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, a cold sweat coating his skin and a deep fear set in his bones that he's never felt before.

The next day he starts his campaign to get her back. He goes to the police station and asks for information on the case. They can't give him anything.

He collects all the newspaper articles reporting her disappearance and tacks them up on his bedroom wall.

He makes flyers and walks around the neighborhood, pinning one to every lamp post and garden fence he sees.

He visits Mrs. Smoak, sits with her while she cries. He looks around Felicity's room, searching for clues. His eyes filling with tears he's tired of shedding as he sees her things, all exactly where she left them. Waiting for her to come home.

For three years, Felicity Smoak overtakes his life. He spends every spare hour he has searching for her. His grades slip, his teachers worry about how withdrawn he's become.

His parents take him to a therapist. He spends the whole session talking about Felicity.

The lead detective on the case knows him by name before too long. And every time Oliver visits and asks if there's any progress, the shaken head and remorseful look, punches him in the stomach all over again.

At the beginning, there are candlelight vigils in churches, and her locker is turned into a shrine. But as time passes, people move on. They have something else to pray for, and her locker gets given to a new student who just arrived from Wyoming.

On the one-year mark, there's an honorary service. Everyone accepting the fact that she's not coming home. But Oliver doesn't let go, he's so sure that she's still out there, somewhere. He develops a hero complex over it, determined to be the one who finds her. Rescues her from her ordeal and returns her home where she belongs.

But the years pass and he doesn't find her. No one does.

Mrs. Smoak drinks a lot these days, and although Oliver still visits her sometimes, he thinks it makes her sad to see him.

It's not until he's standing on the graduation podium, diploma in hand, that he realizes he's barely lived since she disappeared. He doesn't have any friends any more, he can't remember the last time he was invited to a party. He's devoted his teenage years to the little lost girl across the road.

The little girl who probably isn't even alive anymore.

That's the first time he admits to himself that she might really be gone for good.

The first time he tries to let her go, he's eighteen and he spends his graduation night gathering up all the newspaper clippings, all the evidence reports, everything about her that he's collected over the years. He burns them all in the back yard, tears stinging his eyes.

He tries not to think about her all summer, forces himself not to feel guilty for giving up. His nights are plagued with dreams of her, begging him to come to her rescue, imploring him to keep searching for her. He develops insomnia and starts taking pills, only able to sleep if he passes out.

When he leaves for college, he promises himself it will be different. He won't be haunted by her anymore.

He throws himself into life. He drinks and parties and makes friends. He sleeps with countless girls. All in an effort to forget her smiling face. That little eight-year-old girl who was the very embodiment of innocence and light. His friend.

He'll do anything to lose the feeling that he's failing her.

Sometimes he can't block her out. Sometimes he thinks about what she'd be like if she were still here. He thinks about how old she'd be. Just fourteen now, almost the age he was when she went missing.

Sometimes when he drinks too much, he spends the night telling his roommate, Tommy, everything about her, confessing his failure to keep her safe. The self-imposed duty he gave himself when he was nothing but a kid. Determined to be her protector.

Tommy's learned not to mention it the next morning.

He barely scrapes through school, graduating when he's twenty-two. And then he spends his second graduation thinking about Felicity Smoak.

She'd be sixteen now. She'd be starting to date and wear makeup and wonder what she wanted from the rest of her life. He'd probably spend his summer back home, bullying away boys and picking her up from parties when she had a little too much to drink. If she were there. Which she isn't. So he doesn't go home. He doesn't even visit.

He gets a job at a nightclub in town. Tommy's buddy owns it and he lets them both work bar. They end up co-managing the whole place after a year. It's a nice enough job, and he actually finds himself enjoying it. He's good at knowing what people want, and he and Tommy make a good team.

He has a girlfriend for a bit, Laurel. She's beautiful, smart, everything that should be perfect. He wakes up in the night calling Felicity's name. Even after all these years, his nightmares are still as vivid as they were at the start.

He tells Laurel about her, even though it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. She's compassionate and understanding, and he should feel grateful. He should be relieved that she gets it, should revel in her comfort.

He goes out and cheats on her. Sleeping with the first pretty girl who approaches him at the bar. He's not sure why he does it, he's not sure what the hell's wrong with him.

Laurel breaks up with him, Tommy yells at him. He drinks enough to pass out for a day straight.

When he's twenty-four, an eighteen year old Felicity Smoak comes back into his life like a wildfire, setting everything ablaze and lighting up the dark skies above him, just like she always had before.


	2. Give Me Hope (Like Her)

_**AN: Sorry this chapter's so short. I've spent ages trying to work out a problem I have with the next part, and it still doesn't feel right. But I wanted to update sooner rather than later, so I decided to post this as a whole chapter while I rewrite the next bit. They'll get longer though, I promise!** _

_**Oliver's emotional turmoil at seeing her again was something I really tried to write as authentically as possible, and I'm not sure how it worked out. So I'd** **love to know what you think.**_

_**(And yes I did base Felicity's birthmark off Emily's tattoo!)**_

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><p>Chapter One - Give Me Hope (Like Her)<p>

_I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you_  
><em> Anywhere I would've followed you<em>

On a sunny April morning in Starling City, a slightly hung-over Oliver Queen walks into a coffee shop, and his world tips upside down. It's a cliché, the idea that one moment can change everything. But it does, because right there, for the first time in years, for one single, breathtaking second, he feels whole. Like everything is where it should be and nothing hurts.

Because she's there and she's alive and she's so, _so_ beautiful.

He notices the girl in front of him in line straight away. He can't see her face, but his gaze instantly takes in the rest of her; she has blonde hair that curls over her shoulders, a pleasant contrast to the dark blue t-shirt pulled tight across the curve of her back, just displaying a tantalizing strip of skin where it doesn't quite meet her jeans. He can tell she's gorgeous before she even turns around, and the spike of desire he feels is not unwelcome.

He takes the time to observe her, the way she taps her bright pink nails against her thigh, the sweet scent of her shampoo that wafts towards him whenever she moves, how petite she is, barely reaching his shoulder in height.

He's just deciding which line to use, that signature smile that's never failed him in the past falling easily into place, when she turns to look over her shoulder, clear blue eyes meeting his.

His heart stops beating.

He swears, for a second he feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. He can't breathe, he can't think, because even though it's been ten years, and she looks very different from the little girl he remembers, he'd be able to pick her face out of a crowd any day without fail.

But before he can react, do anything, _say_ anything, come to terms with what he's seeing, she's already turning away, taking a step toward the counter as the line shrinks. He follows automatically, his gaze far more intense than before as he takes in every visible inch of her. She's beautiful, all grown up, but she's still so _Felicity_, and it pulls at his heart in an all too familiar way.

He wonders if he's hallucinating, if he's finally gone insane. Because she can't be there.

She's _gone_.

Even thinking that word feels like a kick in the stomach and he closes his eyes tight, dragging a hand down his face, and desperately trying to hold together the rapidly fraying edges of his emotions.

_She can't be here_.

But she is. Because when he looks back up, she's still there, hair catching the sun as it streams through the windows, wearing cute little shoes with pandas on them.

He shifts to the side so he can see her face properly and, barely breathing, takes in every feature; the gentle curve of her nose, full lips painted a fuchsia that matches her nails, the scattering of freckles across her cheeks. He used to tease her about those freckles, pretending to count them, fingers dancing over her soft skin as she laughed.

He swallows down the lump in his throat, looking away at the thought that perhaps he's just projecting Felicity onto some random girl who's about the right age. Maybe he's seeing what he wants to see, so tired of the hollow ache that's hovered in the background of his consciousness since the day she disappeared. Maybe he really has reached the point of madness. Finally given in to the demons that lurk in the corners of his mind.

But then movement catches his eye and he looks up as she reaches out to point at something on the blackboards behind the counter, her sweet voice filtering through his senses as she orders, but all his focus is on her arm, where her sleeve has slipped up past her elbow.

In the years after her disappearance, he'd learned everything there was to know about her. And even if he hadn't, he'd seen that mark often enough in person when they were kids.

She has a jagged birthmark along the crease of her elbow. A tiny patch of slightly darker skin, that tells him that she's really there, he's not crazy, and she's standing just two feet away from him after all these years.

He wants to reach out and touch her, wants to feel the warmth of her skin beneath his hands, the steady thrum of her heartbeat under his fingers, assure himself that she's alive. He wants to grab her and run, take her back home, where she belongs. He wants to wrap her up in cotton wool and hide her somewhere far away, safe from the world where no one can touch her. And this time, he won't fail. This time, _he'll protect her._

Because she's _right there_.

His breaths are short and he feels a little dizzy, years of repressed hope bubbling to the surface as he scans her body, looking for injuries that clearly aren't there. She looks well. Really well. And for a moment he lets himself feel a rush of overwhelming relief at the prospect that he can let go of all the horrible scenarios he's been conjuring up in his head since he was fifteen. Maybe she really has been okay the whole time. Maybe it was all just some giant, insane misunderstanding and she's been living happily somewhere, healthy and warm and whole.

It's not until the last moment, when she has her coffee in hand and starts towards the door, that he panics, because she's walking away and he can't watch her leave. Not when he's only just found her. The idea of her disappearing again, lost in a sea of billions of people, has him choking on desperation and he's reaching out to grab her wrist, before he can think it through.

"_Felicity_." Her name is a prayer on his lips. The first time he's spoken those four syllables in a decade without them sending a stab of pain through his heart.

She turns to face him, the color drained from her face, her familiar eyes wide and fearful.

"What did you call me?" Her voice is scratchy and soft, as though she's holding back unexpected tears. He wants to drag her to him, enclose her in his arms so badly that he has to dig his fingernails into his palms to hold himself back.

"Your name. Felicity." He whispers, his eyes searching her face for any recognition, any understanding. He absently realizes that he's shaking.

She looks shell-shocked, confused and scared. And all he wants is to fix it all for her. Take that look off her face with a hug, pet her hair and give her ice cream until he can coax a smile from her sweet lips, just as he used to when she was a little girl. He could always get her to smile, even when she was crying so hard he thought his heart might break.

But she yanks her arm from his, eyes blazing and lip trembling, and she's running from the café before he can stop her, coffee falling forgotten from her hands, splashing against the floor. He's unaware of the eyes on them as he follows her, every instinct in his body determined not to let her out of his sight. Not again.

_He can't lose her again._

He follows her out into the back alley, where he finds her leaning against a wall, doubled over with her hands on her knees. Her hair forms a curtain around her face, but he can see her shoulders shaking. She looks small and fragile, and so alone, that he has to clench his teeth and breathe deeply to control the visceral reaction he's having to her distress.

He approaches her slowly this time, careful not to spook her.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He promises as he gets closer, his voice gentle and as steady as he can manage. "I know you probably don't remember me, but you used to live in the house opposite mine." He swallows past the lump in his throat, memories of her, aged six with a shiny smile on her face and a packet of sparklers in her hands, flicking through his brain like a clip show.

He remembers her _so_ clearly. Remembers everything about her like it all happened yesterday. Like no time has passed since he taught her to play football in his backyard, since she kissed his scraped knee when he fell off his skateboard, since they were just two happy children with their whole lives ahead of them.

"We were friends when we were kids." He finishes gently.

She looks up at him, eyes finally meeting his. Tears stain her cheeks and he forces himself not to close the distance between them and brush them away.

"Oliver?" Her voice is soft, unsure, but it sends a course of emotion through him, so strong he almost wobbles on his feet.

He nods shakily. "Yeah, I'm Oliver."

Her eyes hold his for a long second, and he can see the recognition there. See that she remembers it too. There's a flicker of warmth, of nostalgia, a flame that gets quickly buried by sorrow.

"I'm sorry." It's just a whisper, and before he has time to process what she means, she's running. Hair flying out behind her as she darts down the alley.

Her figure gets smaller as the distance between them grows.


	3. from the shadows

_**AN:Sorry for the long wait, I've spent ages agonizing over this chapter and after weeks I'm giving up. Whatever I do, I'm still going to hate it so... here you go!**_

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><p><em>Your eyes look like coming home<em>

He takes a split second to consider letting her go. Standing still and watching her disappear back to wherever she came from. Perhaps he could chalk the whole thing up to an overtired, over-caffeinated morning, with the memory of last night's whiskey still strong on his tongue. He could write it off, watch her fade from sight and spend the next weeks, months, years, trying to push her out of mind. But it only lasts a split second, because letting her go has never really been an option.

He follows her, jogging a hundred yards behind, one of his steps matching two of hers. She ducks out of the alley, hair flying out behind her, shoes clacking against the concrete. He pauses and presses himself against the grimy, graphitized wall, as she reaches a bright red mini, casting frightened eyes around the street before fumbling with her keys and jumping in.

The tiny car pulls out a second later and he counts to ten before running to grab his bike. He's determined, if not to talk to her, then at least to see where she goes. Then he'll call the police, her mother, his parents. Everything could go back to the way it always should have been. And maybe that will be the closure he needs, maybe she'll stop haunting him, maybe that constant ache will fade from his chest, maybe he'll finally be able to move on from what happened, to her, to him. _To them_. Maybe he'll be able to live his own life, and let her live hers. Maybe.

He doubts it will be that easy.

He follows behind her at a safe distance, the bright crimson of her car a honing beacon with every turn he makes. She drives fast, leaving the city behind in favor of the suburbs, skyscrapers fading into picket fences.

The journey gives him a moment to think, to let the reality of it sink in, the fact that she's really there, just a few hundred feet ahead of him, in a toy car, with blonde hair and pandas on her shoes. He's imagined seeing her again so many times, in so many different ways. He's pictured every different scenario this could play out since he was just a boy. The grand rescue, the triumphant return, the tears, the laughter, he's imagined it all. But he never once thought he'd see her by chance, a bright young girl getting coffee on a Saturday morning in Starling City.

It's overwhelming, surreal, and if not for his steady focus on the road ahead, he thinks he might forget how to breathe.

After about twenty minutes, they reach a suburb on the South side town. It's a nice enough neighborhood, neither rich nor poor, mostly made up of bungalows surrounded by neatly trimmed gardens. He stops around the corner when she pulls up outside a small house, cutting his engine and propping up his bike, watching from just out of sight as she parks.

She carefully locks the car and walks up a narrow path before letting herself into the house. It's pretty, if a little run down. Small but respectable, a well-tended rose garden a bright splash of color at the front. There are lights on inside and he walks closer, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he catches sight of her silhouette through lit windows.

Trying not to feel, or look, too much like a creeper, he gets as close as he feels comfortable, until he can clearly see two figures inside. The kitchen window is open, the curtains pulled back to let in the evening air.

Felicity's tying her hair up, scooping long curls off her neck to secure them in a high ponytail as she talks to her companion. He gets distracted for a second by the long column of her throat and the way her top slips aside a little, showing a hint of cleavage.

That's another whole aspect of this thing that's sending him into a whirlpool of turmoil. He was attracted to her the moment he laid eyes on her in that coffee shop. Before he knew who she was, his eyes were instantly drawn to her, his desire paramount. That was put on the back burner of course, when she turned around and he saw that face for the first time in ten years. But it's still there. And the thought of seeing Felicity like that, as a woman, a _beautiful_ woman, is something that's hard for him to compute.

He forces his mind to leave those thoughts by the wayside for now, focusing instead on the scene before him. His eyes settle on the other occupant of the small kitchen, an older woman, he'd guess somewhere in her fifties, gray hair pulled back into a bun. She's doing the dishes, leaning over the sink and glancing up at Felicity every few minutes to respond to the seemingly never-ending stream of words coming from the young blonde.

She looks kind, a soft smile on her face as she listens to Felicity talk, a look that clearly displays affection, perhaps even love.

Felicity has hoisted herself up to sit on one of the surfaces, legs kicking back and forth against the cupboards below. At a glance she looks happy, carefree, comfortable. But Oliver's always been good at reading people, at noticing the little nuances that so often are lost to most. Her eyes keep darting to the window, almost as though she knows he's there, despite the fact that there's no way she can see him. And she's fidgeting, fingers picking at her clothes, teeth biting into her lip, she's unsettled, and covering her nerves by babbling.

She used to do that when she was a child too. Whenever she got upset or scared, she'd just talk non-stop as though she thought if she just distracted everyone from the problem, they might not notice it existed. But he always did.

He stays hidden in the little front garden until the curtains are drawn and the lights flicker off. And only then does he walk slowly back to his bike, his limbs heavy and his mind racing.

His thoughts feel like a ball of tangled yarn, and he doesn't know which thread to pull at first.

His phone feels like a lead weight in his pocket and he knows that every second he delays calling her mother is a second too long. But he can't bring himself to do it. He's not sure why. It's not really a rational thought, more a feeling, an instinct that's settled deep into his bones.

He can't rain chaos down on her without warning, take a wrecking ball to the life she knows. He's spent years wanting nothing more than to rescue her, be the one to save her from her peril and deliver her home. And now that moment's arrived and nothing's black and white anymore. Everything's gray and she's this one splash of color in the middle, and he's desperately scared of hurting her.

So he doesn't. He walks away, feeling sick to his stomach with every step he takes. Guilt and confusion warring in his mind until his head is pounding.

He's so distracted on the drive back to his apartment that he runs a red and almost has a head on collision with a Prius.

He spends that night tossing and turning in a bed that feels colder than usual. For the first time in his life, he's at a complete loss of what to do.

When Felicity first went missing, the object was very clear. Get her back. That was all that mattered. From that moment for years to come, that was his only goal in life. _Find Felicity_.

And now he has, finally, inexplicably, found her. But it doesn't feel anything like he imagined it would. It's confusing and disturbing, and so much more complicated than it ever was in theory. He never thought about what it might do to her, being 'rescued' and dragged out of a life she knows, taken back to a world she might not remember. It never occurred to him that she might not want to come home, that she might not want to see him. He imagined terrible scenarios, he imagined her in pain and fear, the images plagued him for years. He was a child, and everything was still in black and white, right and wrong, yes and no.

Nothing is that easy anymore.

He's spent the last few years thinking she was dead. _Forcing_ himself to think it. To acknowledge and accept the fact that she was really gone. That in itself is hard to come back from. It's _all_ hard to come back from. His whole life, her whole life, it's all been defined by a single day ten years ago. And even now that he's found her, it's no closer to being fixed. He's pretty sure it's something that can never be fixed by anyone.

All that matters to him now, is causing Felicity as little further pain as possible. Because at the end of the day, his loyalty has always lain with her. All he's ever wanted, is for her to be okay.

So he doesn't call the police, he doesn't storm into her life and drag her home.

He follows her.

For two weeks he watches her, and he learns everything he can about her life from a distance. She has a job at a tech store in the city, she pauses outside shop windows to look at colorful dresses but never goes in, she has coffee and frozen yogurt for lunch, she goes home at five every evening. She doesn't have much of a social life, from what he can tell. If she's not at work, she's at home, often alone, sometimes with the older woman. She likes to garden; she's the one who looks after the rose garden outside, spending hours carefully pruning the bushes and weeding the beds. She likes to wear pink, or varying shades of reds and purples. Always bright colors and matching nails. She's jumpy, outwardly happy, but with more nervous ticks than one person should have.

He can feel himself slipping back into his old obsession. Recording every detail of her life, memorizing every tiny thing about her. It's exactly what he did when she first went missing, learnt everything there was to know about her, let thoughts of her consume him until everything else fell away.

Experiencing that kind of loss at such an impressionable age screwed something up inside him. Seeing the darkness that the world holds, losing someone he _loved_. It broke something. Because it wasn't just the loss, it was the _failure_. The failure to protect her, to keep her safe.

Logically he knows now that he was just a kid himself, and that it wasn't his job to protect her. She was just his friend, the little girl across the road. No one expected him to take care of her, to bare any responsibility for her. But he did. Ever since she was just a tiny little thing, with shiny curls and pink dresses and eyes so blue they pinned you where you stood, he'd felt the urge to shield her from anything that might harm her. And he hadn't succeeded. She'd been whisked away from under his nose and he'd never recovered. He'd never forgiven himself.

And now, all these years later, that urge hasn't changed. The burning need to keep her safe is still there, thrumming through his veins, eating him up from the inside out.

He can see she's happy, relatively speaking. She has a job she likes, a pretty little house, a comfortable home life. And she clearly loves the woman she lives with. Disrupting her world, however good his intentions, could end up being the worst move he could possibly make. So he carries on watching over her, hating himself just a little more with every hour that passes.

It's another two days before she confronts him. He's spent seventy-two more hours agonizing over the situation, and the sleepless nights have him drifting off in his car, in the road by her house.

He jolts awake to the sound of the door slamming, and turns to see her climbing into the passenger seat, blonde hair cascading over her bare shoulders. She smells like jasmine. His heart beats an unsteady rhythm against his chest.

"You can't keep following me around, Oliver." She says softly.

Her eyes are fixed ahead, her gaze steady and strong, her shoulders tense. He expected her to be angry, to yell, to cry. But she looks calm, and a little sad.

"I know." He replies.

She looks up at him then, eyes wide and he can see the traces of confusion in their blue depths. He can't even imagine what she's thinking in that moment, but she doesn't seem to fear him. And right then, that's all that matters.

He gets the feeling she doesn't remember a lot from before this place. He guesses she probably blocked it out, post-traumatic stress or something. Which just makes this all the more confusing and complicated.

She's silent for a minute, assessing him, gentle eyes running over his features.

"I remember you, you know."

"I know." He repeats. He wants to let her take the lead here, he doesn't want to overwhelm her and end up scaring her away again.

"You drew a smiley face on a balloon when I was in hospital." She murmurs, her eyes faraway for a moment, a crease forming between her brows. "And you used to do my hair sometimes." She plays absently with a lock of her hair, twirling it around her fingers. "I had darker hair then, didn't I?" It's a question and she's looking at him like he holds the key to the universe.

"Yes." He nods, his hands itching to mimic her actions and wind one of her curls around his finger.

"Where was that?" She sounds so small and innocent, and his heart lurches.

"Las Vegas. We lived in Vegas." He answers gently, watching her closely for any flicker of recognition.

"I moved away. Mom and I… We moved away, right?" She knows it's not the truth. He can tell that in some deep part of her _she knows_.

"No." He takes a deep breath and prays she won't run again. "Your mother's still there."

Her eyes fill with tears and she shakes her head.

"My mom's name is Anne. She lives in Starling City and her favorite color's purple." She mutters, almost under her breath.

It's heartbreaking, and Oliver wishes he could fix it all for her. But he doesn't know how. He doesn't know how to do any of this.

He's scrambling of the right thing to say when she starts speaking again.

"When I saw you, in the coffee shop, I… I just knew your name. And I remembered some things… they felt like a dream. But I knew you."

That's good. He can work with that.

"You do know me. I promise. And I'll help you in any way I can."

A solitary tear slips down her cheek and she brushes it away, pink nail polish catching the light.

"I'm not ready." She starts, her voice unsteady and her eyes glistening. "I'm not ready to think about what it means, not yet."

He nods steadily, and when another tear falls, he catches it on his thumb. He expects her to stiffen and pull away, but she doesn't.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to." He assures her gently. "But…" He hesitates for a mere second before "Could I see you sometimes? Just… Maybe we could be friends again."

She cracks a smile, small and wavering, but just as brilliant as it always was.

"I'd like that." She says softly and his heart thuds.

He'd been waiting for her to run, but she's still there. She's agreeing to see him and she's smiling and she smells like jasmine and _that's the moment_ he lets himself believe, for the first time in eight years, that maybe he hasn't lost her after all.

"I should go." She mumbles after a minute, fingers twisting nervously in the hem of her shirt.

He ignores the tug of panic in his stomach and nods, grabbing one of his Verdant cards from the glove compartment, complete with both his numbers and his email, and handing it to her.

"Call me if you _ever_ need anything. Or if you just want to grab a coffee and talk or something." He says, smiling as reassuringly as he can muster, his eyes prickling.

She takes it with a solemn nod, tucking it into her jeans pocket.

"Thanks." She opens the door but turns back just before she steps out. "Are you going to stop following me around now?" There's a slight smile on her face and he chuckles nervously.

"Yeah. Sorry about that. I'll stop." He's not really sure he can stop at this point, but that's a problem for later. Because right now she's never seemed more alive and he wants remember every second of it.

She gives him one last look, eyes catching his for a moment that drags into two. And he understands what she's not saying. She's trusting him. And he won't betray her.

But then the spell breaks and she's climbing out of his car and turning away. "I'll you soon, Oliver." She says, just loud enough that he can catch it, before she's disappearing down the street, her hair blowing about her shoulders.

"I'll see you soon Felicity." He murmurs, a smile on his face as he watches her go.


	4. little moments

_**AN: I am a horrible person. And I really need to stop moving country out of the blue because it leaves very little time to write.**_

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><p><em>Oh struggle is right<em>  
><em>What's black is white<em>  
><em>The moment you fall, you fly<em>

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><p>Two long days pass and he doesn't hear from her. He tries to focus on work, it's a busy time of year for Verdant and he's been so distracted since he found Felicity that he's fallen behind on stuff he needs to do. But she's still all he can think about. Every aspect of her fills his mind, when he's talking to Tommy or doing paperwork, or driving home at night, she's there with him for every turn.<p>

And it's not just because she was his childhood crucible, but because she's… She's just as he remembers her, and nothing like he remembers at the same time. She's beautiful and smart and damaged and yet so far from broken. She's just as vibrant as she always was, just as sweet, as gentle, and yet her eyes swim with such sadness. She's the enigma he always remembered her to be. And that spell she cast over him when he was a kid, the enchantment she filled him with since she was just a little girl, it's still there, burning strong whenever he thinks of her.

But he respects her wishes and he keeps his word. He doesn't drive the familiar road back to her house, to check she's okay, to find the comfort that catching but one glimpse of her would offer.

He stays late at the club, staring at paperwork, trying to force his eyes to see something other than shiny blonde hair and shy smiles.

When her number finally pops up on his phone, three days after the fact, he pretends not to notice the way his heart jumps in his chest. It's a text, asking to meet for coffee and he agrees instantly. They arrange to meet at the same coffee shop they happened upon each other just two weeks earlier, and he watches the clock until it's time.

He arrives first and gets a table towards the back, away from prying eyes and eager ears. He orders her the drink he saw her get before, a hazelnut latte with honey instead of sugar, and a black coffee for himself.

He's not looking at the door, but he feels it the second she walks in. The air shifts around him and the whole room feels lighter. His eyes gravitate towards her and his breath catches in his throat. He keeps forgetting how beautiful she is.

Her hair is pulled up into a ponytail, little wisps of blonde escaping to frame her face. She's wearing a bright, patterned cardigan and her lips are painted a deep magenta. She's all color and light and he drinks her in like a man in a desert reaching an oasis.

She spots him after a moment, and makes her way through the tables until she reaches him. He stands to greet her and there's a pause as they both just look at the other, jumbled emotions tying tongues. She blushes slightly, a soft pink rising in her cheeks, and he thinks she's the most lovely thing he's ever seen.

He forces himself to keep some sense of focus, and pulls out a chair for her, his lips turning up in what he hopes is a warm, casual smile. Something his sister is always telling him he should do more often.

He sits down opposite her and slides her coffee across the table, noticing the slight tremor in her fingers, and the color that still hasn't left her cheeks. She takes a sip and fails to hide the surprise on her face.

"You remembered my order?" She sounds so shocked, like the thought of someone caring enough to remember something as mundane as how she likes her coffee, is unfathomable. He tries not to think about why that might be.

"Of course."

The smile that she graces him with is so genuine and spontaneous it almost hurts to look directly at it.

"Thank you." She murmurs, eyes not leaving his.

"Anytime." The word carries more meaning than he intended, but he means it. He doesn't know who she is now, he doesn't know what life she has lead, or what she wants to do with her future, or even what music she likes, but he knows he would drop everything to see her if she called.

The moment stretches out, blue on blue, until his own heartbeat is all he can hear and his eyes are starting to sting because he keeps forgetting to blink. It's not just that he's a little scared she'll disappear if he does, he's more afraid that she'll _choose_ to leave. That she'll tell him she wants nothing to do with him, doesn't want him to be in her life. That she'll stand up and walk away, with no explanation or closure, nothing but a goodbye. He wouldn't blame her if she did. But it might just kill him.

But she doesn't do that. Her eyes drop from his, falling to her coffee, her fingers picking at the cardboard sleeve around the cup.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you before… or text you earlier. I needed some time to… I don't know. Try to understand? Just come to terms with some things I guess. Don't get me wrong though, I'm still not really _at terms_ with anything. That was the _idea_, but it didn't really pan out so I decided to just swallow the medicine, so to speak, and see you. Not that seeing you is bad! That sounded awful, I didn't mean that… I just meant…" She sighs and presses her eyes closed, painted nails tapping against the table in agitation. "Sorry. I ramble. It's a curse." She looks up at him again and seems surprised to see him smiling. (It's impossible not to smile at her.) She returns the gesture, hesitantly, still looking a little unsure. When she speaks again, her voice is softer, and her eyes don't leave his. "I'm happy to see you. It's just all very confusing. But I didn't mean I wasn't happy to see you."

The warmth that fills his chest is unexpected, but not unwelcome, he's not sure what it is about her that elicits such strong reactions from him. Every tiny little thing she does or says, seems to have a physiological effect on him, and it's more than a little unnerving.

"It's okay, I know what you meant."

Another charged moment passes between them, eye contact stretching on for a beat too long. That seems to be turning into a habit.

She finally clears her throat and looks away, and if he didn't know better, he'd say she's doing the same as him, desperately reining in emotions that are too much to sort through right then.

"So, you said we could catch up on the last few years… What have you been up to?" She asks, her voice casual.

But she doesn't fool him. He knows what she's doing, he can see it in her posture, hear it in her voice. She's not ready to deal with the fallout of the conversation they'll have to have at some point. The elephant in the room that will likely trample across everything else once it's let loose.

He doesn't push her though. He's happy to let it be her move, and he'll follow her cues until then. The last thing he wants to do is push her too far and end up driving her away all together.

So he leans back in his chair and runs a hand over the back of his neck. He thinks about the years he spent without her in his life. Most of his memories revolve around her. That loss was a dark umbrella over his world for so long, controlling every thought, and most actions. But that's hardly something he can tell her. So he sticks to the basics.

"Well, I went to Harvard, after a few false starts, and got a degree in business. I had know idea what I wanted to do with myself at that point, and it seemed ambiguous enough to give me options. After I graduated, I moved here with my friend Tommy, his buddy owns a nightclub and he offered us jobs there straight out of college. He moved onto other stuff after a couple of years, so Tommy and I manage the place now." It's a simple answer, summing up so much with as few words as possible, painting a happy story out of a time he remembers in black and white.

"Oh that's so cool! What's the club called?" She seems genuinely interested, leaning towards him slightly, body language open and curious. He can see that she's let her guard down, not completely, but just enough to let him know that she feels comfortable there with him. That she feels safe. The thought fills him with a surge of protectiveness.

"Verdant." He replies after a second.

Her eyes widen and she sits up straighter, mouth opening to form a little 'oh' of excitement. "The business card! I thought the logo looked familiar. I've heard of it! People at work are always talking about going there. Apparently it's super hard to get in."

"Yeah, it can get pretty full sometimes." He can't help the little swell of pride that she's heard of them.

"So, Tommy. He's your best friend?" She asks, watching him over her coffee cup as she sips at it delicately, leaving a smudge of pink on the lid.

"Yeah, we were roommates in college and we just sort of stuck together since then."

"That's nice. And you… Did you have a sister? I feel like you had a sister." She frowns and that curtain of confusion and sorrow dips across her eyes again. Dimming the light that shone there before.

Oliver's chest aches and he swallows before answering.

"Yes. Thea. She's back home, she's fourteen. She's wonderful. I mean, she's a little tyrant, but I love her."

Felicity's staring at the table, lower lip caught between her teeth, a furrow in her brow.

"I remember. She was… she was a baby when-" She breaks off and swallows, fingers tugging at the cuffs of her sweater.

The darkness is threatening to shroud the light all together, and that thought hurts, so he answers quickly and changes the subject, realizing that she's not the only who's not ready to talk about all those things that they really should talk about.

"Yeah she was. So what about you? Are you in college?" It's an obvious shift, but one she accepts with a grateful glance and an almost undetectable sigh of relief.

"No. I want to go to MIT, but it's… It's complicated." There's a weight to those words too, but nothing like before. There's a normality that seems to outweigh the sorrow.

"MIT? So you're into technology."

She lights up then, her eyes shining and her lips curling into a smile around her words as she speaks. Most of what she says goes over his head, computer jargon and tech speak. But he's happy to just watch her talk, the way her hands fly around, so animated in her excitement. He always knew she was smart. When she was a kid she had melted away the age difference between them with her wit and understanding. But now, it's wonderful to see her so passionate about something, to see how much she's grown, developed into the intelligent, beautiful woman he sees before him now.

She breaks off and blushes after a particularly long ramble about a controversial article she recently read in Wired.

"Sorry. I'm probably boring you to death. I tend to get a carried away with this stuff."

He doesn't tell her that he'd be happy to sit and listen to he talk for the rest of his life. But he does smile reassuringly, watching in interest as her shoulders visibly relax as he does so.

"You're not boring me. It's great that you have something you're so interested in. You'll be brilliant at MIT."

"Maybe. One day."

He wonders what the issue is there, but doesn't push for any answers. He thinks maybe it's the money, she doesn't seem to live a particularly affluent life. If that's the case then it shouldn't be. Her mother could easily send her to MIT. As could he, if she'd let him. He finds himself hoping that he'll be able to fix this one thing for her, at some point in the future. He can't fix whatever happened to her. He can't fix the fact that she was ripped away from him, from her family. But perhaps he can make sure she goes to the college of her dreams.

Time passes faster than either of them realize. The hum of the coffee shop changes around them, the mid morning crowd shifting to the lunch rush, and then early afternoon stragglers.

They talk about everything and nothing. Words flowing easily, warmth and trust growing with every new bit of information they learn about each other. They don't touch on the heavy topics, by some silent mutual agreement. But it doesn't hang over them, it's there in the background, but it doesn't stunt the conversation or dampen the shared smiles that happen with a surprising frequency.

Oliver can't remember the last time he was so entertained by simply talking to someone that he lost track of time. He doesn't think it's ever happened, actually. At least, not as an adult. But he could talk to Felicity forever, there's an ease to it, a familiarity. His soul feels lighter when he's near her.

But of course, they can't stay there forever.

Felicity leaves first, with a promise of seeing him again soon, and a soft smile that makes his stomach flip.

He almost gets into two accidents on the way home, pink lips and lilting laughter the only things on his mind.

But the best part is the sense of hope that's been absent for so long, slowly making its way through his heart.


End file.
